Ara Gregorian - Artistic Director, violin and viola

Known for his thrilling performances and musical creativity, Gregorian made his New York recital debut in 1996 in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and his debut as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra in Symphony Hall in 1997. Since that time he has established himself as one of the most sought-after and versatile musicians of his generation with performances in New York’s Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center and in major metropolitan cities throughout the world including Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Cleveland, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Tel Aviv and Helsinki.

Throughout his career, Gregorian has taken an active role as a performer and presenter of chamber music. He is the founder and artistic director of the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival in Greenville, North Carolina, and a member of the Cooperstown Quartet. He has appeared at festivals worldwide including the SpringLight (Finland), Storioni (Holland), Summer Solstice (Canada), Casals (Puerto Rico), Bard, Bravo! Vail Valley, Santa Fe, Skaneateles, Music in the Vineyards, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Cactus Pear, Wintergreen, Mt. Desert, Madeline Island and Strings in the Mountains festivals. He has also performed extensively as a member of numerous chamber music ensembles including the Daedalus Quartet, Concertante and the Arcadian Trio and has recorded for National Public Radio, New York’s WQXR radio station, and the Bridge and Kleos labels.

An active and committed teacher, Gregorian has been a member of the violin faculty at East Carolina University since 1998 and has taught at numerous summer festivals and seminars. In addition, he has taken a leading role in creating opportunities for established musicians to perform with talented students in a mentoring setting through the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival’s Next Generation concerts.

Gregorian received his bachelor and master of music degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with Joseph Fuchs, Harvey Shapiro, and Robert Mann. He performs on a Francesco Ruggeri violin from 1690 and a Grubaugh and Seifert viola from 2006.

Rieko Aizawa, piano

Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa, discovered at age 13 by the late Alexander Schneider on the recommendation of pianist Mitsuko Uchida, has since established her own unique musical voice. Schneider engaged her as soloist with his Brandenburg Ensemble at the opening concerts of Tokyo's Casals Hall; later that year, Schneider presented 14-year-old Ms. Aizawa in her U.S. debut concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, performing Mozart's Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414, with his New York String Orchestra.

Praised by the NY Times for her “impressive musicality, a crisp touch and expressive phrasing,” Ms. Aizawa has performed in solo and orchestral engagements throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and Chicago's Orchestra Hall. Highlights of recent seasons have included acclaimed performances with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa, the English Chamber Orchestra under Heinz Holliger, the Festival Strings Lucerne in Switzerland under Rudolf Baumgartner, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, the Curtis Institute Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the St. Louis Symphony under David Loebel and a wonderfully received performance with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Aizawa also has a great interest in exploring unusual repertoire. In October 2007, the St. Paul Pioneer Press described her performance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf "the Salieri Piano Concerto in C was played so splendidly by Rieko Aizawa. Hers was a graceful reading. .... Aizawa's performance lent the work a respect it rarely receives." In the same year, she received the Washington Award.

As a recitalist, Ms. Aizawa has been heard in many North American cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, St. Louis, Seattle, Boulder, Los Angeles, Houston, and Toronto; at the Caramoor International Festival; at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival; Ravinia Festival, Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Following a recent all-Beethoven recital in Dresden, Germany, a reviewer wrote: "Her listeners followed her playing -full of details and delicate contrasts- breathlessly." Ms. Aizawa recently has started her "Prism" series in Japan, with tributes to Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, and specially commissioned works for each program. She also will continue her exploration of Beethoven's music with a Beethoven cycle at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 2006, Ms. Aizawa performed a series of all-Mozart recitals, a project jointly presented by WFMT-Chicago and Fazioli.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Aizawa has performed with the Guarneri Quartet, the Orion Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet and the Amelia Piano Trio, and she has appeared in numerous festivals, such as the Marlboro Music Festival, U.S.A.; the Kammermusik Festival Moritzburg, Germany; and the Evian Festival, France. She also has been a guest artist of Boston's, Philadelphia's and Seattle's Chamber Music Society. Ms. Aizawa is a founding member of Horszowski Trio as well as the prize winning ensemble Duo Prism. Ms. Aizawa became the artistic director of the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Colorado in 2010.

Ms. Aizawa received her Masters Degree from the Juilliard School, where she worked with Peter Serkin. She is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the prestigious Rachmaninoff Prize and studied with Seymour Lipkin, Peter Serkin, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski as his last pupil. March 2005 marked the release of Ms. Aizawa's first solo recording on the Japanese label Altus Music - a tour-de-force CD of Shostakovich's and Scriabin's "24 Preludes." Her second solo CD, of Faure's and Messiaen’s preludes, will come out in 2013.

Ms. Aizawa lives in New York City, and she is on the faculty at Longy School of Music of Bard College. Ms. Aizawa is a Steinway Artist.

Misha Amory, viola

Since winning the 1991 Naumburg Viola Award, Misha Amory has been acclaimed as one of the leading American violists of his generation. He has performed with orchestras in the United States and Europe, and has been presented in recital at New York's Tully Hall, Los Angeles' Ambassador series, Philadelphia's Mozart on the Square festival, Boston's Gardner Museum, Houston's Da Camera series and Washington's Phillips Collection. He has been invited to perform at the Marlboro Festival, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, the Vancouver Festival, the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center and the Boston Chamber Music Society, and he released a recording of Hindemith sonatas on the Musical Heritage Society label in 1993.

Mr. Amory is a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet, which enjoys a distinguished concert career in the United States and abroad. Winners of the inaugural Cleveland Quartet Award and the 1995 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the Quartet was also the inaugural group for the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center's new program, Chamber Music Society II. Touring worldwide, the Quartet has appeared in Wigmore Hall, London; the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the Konzerthaus, Vienna; the Opera House, Sydney; Suntory Hall, Tokyo; and at home in Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, New York, as well as at many other distinguished venues. The Quartet has recorded music of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Charles Wuorinen, Bruce Adolphe, and Chou Wen-chung, and most recently concluded its recording of Beethoven's late quartets on the Aeon label, as well as the Schubert Cello Quintet with Michael Kannen on the Azica label. The Quartet was in residence at Princeton University from 1999 to 2014, and since 2014 has been Ensemble-in-Residence at the Yale School of Music.

Mr. Amory holds degrees from Yale University and the Juilliard School. His principal teachers were Heidi Castleman, Caroline Levine and Samuel Rhodes. Himself a dedicated teacher, Mr. Amory serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School in New York City and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Ani Aznavoorian, cello

The Strad magazine describes cellist Ani Aznavoorian as having “Scorchingly committed performances that wring every last drop of emotion out of the music. Her technique is well-nigh immaculate, she has a natural sense of theater, and her tone is astonishingly responsive.” Ms. Aznavoorian is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician with some of the most recognized ensembles, and she has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony, the International Sejong Soloists, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Juilliard Orchestra, and the Edmonton Symphony. This season marks Ms. Aznavoorian’s eleventh year as principal cellist with Camerata Pacifica.

Ms. Aznavoorian received the prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award for her outstanding cello playing and artistry. Some of her other awards include first prizes in the Illinois Young Performers Competition (televised live on PBS with the Chicago Symphony), the Chicago Cello Society National Competition, the Julius Stulberg Competition, and the American String Teachers Association Competition. She was a top prizewinner in the 1996 International Paulo Competition, held in Helsinki, Finland. As a recipient of the Level I award in the National Foundation for the Arts Recognition and Talent Search, Ms. Aznavoorian was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and performed as soloist at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. where she met former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

As a first-year student at The Juilliard School, Ms. Aznavoorian won first prize in the institution’s concerto competition—the youngest cellist in the history of the school’s cello competitions to do so. As a result, she performed with the Juilliard Orchestra in a concert with conductor Gerard Schwarz at Avery Fisher Hall. With only 12 hours notice, Ms. Aznavoorian stepped in to replace Natalia Gutman in three performances of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 with the San Jose Symphony—concerts that were hailed by the San Jose Press. Other notable appearances include concerts at Weill Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Ravinia’s Bennett Hall, Aspen’s Harris Hall, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, WFMT Live from Studio 1, and NPR’s Performance Today. She has been a member of the renowned string ensemble the International Sejong Soloists, and also performs frequently on the Jupiter Chamber Music series in New York. Ms. Aznavoorian received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School where she studied with Aldo Parisot.

In addition to performing, teaching plays an important part in Ms. Aznavoorian’s career. She has been a member of the distinguished music faculty at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, and in the summers has served on the faculty of the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea. Ms. Aznavoorian enjoys performing new music and has made the world premiers of many important pieces in the cello repertoire. Some of these include Ezra Laderman’s Concerto No. 2 with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic under the baton of Lawrence Leighton Smith, Lera Auerbach’s “24 Preludes for Cello and Piano” on stage at the Hamburg Staatsoper with the Hamburg State Ballet—choreographed by John Neumeier, and Lera Auerbach’s “Dreammusik” for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, which was written for her and commissioned by Camerata Pacifica and Sandra Svoboda. In addition to return engagements at chamber music festivals around the globe, this season will include a debut concert tour of Armenia, the country of her ancestors. Ms. Aznavoorian records for Cedille Records, and she proudly performs on a cello made by her father Peter Aznavoorian in Chicago.

Christopher Buddo, bass

J. Christopher Buddo has been Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication at East Carolina University since 2012. He came to ECU in 2006 as Director of the School of Music. Previously he held faculty and administrative positions at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He has also taught at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois and the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.

As a double bassist, he has performed with the Birch Creek Summer Music Festival in Door County Wisconsin and the Bedford Springs Music Festival in Pennsylvania. He has also played with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Waco Symphony, the Des Moines Symphony, the Quad-City Symphony, the Cedar Rapids Symphony, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony, and the Roanoke Symphony. As a conductor, Dr. Buddo has led numerous opera productions, he has directed the Iowa City Youth Orchestra, and was the founding conductor of the Waco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Colin Carr, cello

Colin Carr appears throughout the world as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, and teacher. He has played with major orchestras worldwide, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, The Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, the orchestras of Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Philadelphia, Montréal and all the major orchestras of Australia and New Zealand. Conductors with whom he has worked include Rattle, Gergiev, Dutoit, Elder, Skrowasczewski and Marriner. He has been a regular guest at the BBC Proms, has twice toured Australia, and has recently played concertos with the London Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony and Halle Orchestra.

Last season Colin performed cycles of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano with his duo partner Thomas Sauer throughout the United States and in England, Germany and France. They have recently played recitals together at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Philadelphia’s Chamber Music Society and at the Wigmore Hall in London. Colin has also played several cycles of the Bach Solo Suites at the Wigmore Hall, in the United States at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Gardner Museum in Boston and recently in Montreal, Toronto, Ottowa and Vancouver.

Colin’s recordings for GM of the Bach Suites and the unaccompanied cello works of Kodaly, Britten, Crumb, and Schuller are highly acclaimed, as is his recent recording of the complete cello/piano works of Mendelssohn with Thomas Sauer on Cello Classics. The Brahms Sonatas on Arabesque, with pianist Lee Luvisi, is also a favorite and the Wigmore Live Label will release a new recording of the Bach Suites in 2013. The MSR label will release the complete Beethoven cello/piano music (also with Tom Sauer) at the same time. Colin was the soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto in a BBC Music Magazine recording with the BBC Philharmonic. Sony will release a new recording of Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg sextets with the Emerson Quartet, also in 2013.

As a member of the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio, he recorded and toured extensively for 20 years. Chamber music plays an important role in his musical life. He is a frequent visitor to international chamber music festivals worldwide and has appeared often as a guest with the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets and with New York's Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2012 he recorded the string sextets of Schoenberg and Tchaikovsky with the Emerson String Quartet and Paul Neubauer and this season he is playing with the same group in two concerts at Carnegie Hall.

Colin is the winner of many prestigious international awards, including First Prize in the Naumburg Competition, the Gregor Piatigorsky Memorial Award and Second Prize in the Rostropovich International Cello Competition.

He first played the cello at the age of five. Three years later he went to the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he studied with Maurice Gendron and later William Pleeth. He was made a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in 1998, having been on the faculty of the New England Conservatory in Boston for 16 years. In 1998, St. John’s College, Oxford created the post of “Musician in Residence” for him, and in September 2002 he became a professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

Mr. Carr’s cello was made by Matteo Gofriller in Venice in 1730. He makes his home with his wife Caroline and 3 children, Clifford, Frankie and Anya, in an old house outside Oxford.

Cooperstown Quartet

The Cooperstown Quartet brings together four of the chamber music world’s most exciting and experienced performers. Its members - violinists Ara Gregorian and Hye-Jin Kim, violist Maria Lambros and cellist Michael Kannen - are former members of some of this country’s most respected ensembles: the Brentano, Daedalus, Meliora, Mendelssohn and Ridge string quartets as well as the string sextet, Concertante. Having played together for years, they now make it official.

These musicians have performed in the world’s most prestigious venues including New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully halls, London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Vienna’s Konzerthaus; won international competitions including the Yehudi Menuhin International and Concert Artists Guild International competitions; performed throughout Asia, Australia, Europe and North America; and are veterans of the Four Seasons, Marlboro, Santa Fe, Ravinia, Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest and Prussia Cove chamber music festivals. In addition to their extensive music-making careers, they are all dedicated teachers, with appointments at the Peabody Conservatory and East Carolina University. In short, four consummate musicians come together to form one dynamic and brilliant string quartet.

Emanuel Gruber, cello

Emanuel Gruber is celebrated as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and teacher. He has brought his “authority, sensitivity to musical values, wide dynamic range, and great mastery of his instrument” (Music Journal, New York) to collaborations with artists such as Neville Marriner, Rudolf Barshai, Shelomo Mintz, Pinkas Zukerman, Miriam Fried, Philippe Entremont, Jean Bernard Pommier, Tamas Vasary, and Janos Starker. “One of our great artists” the Jerusalem Post wrote, citing “his extraordinary capacity for projecting the deepest meaning of the music”. Awarded the Pablo Casals Prize by the Philharmonic Orchestra, he also won the Concert Artists’ Guild Auditions early in his career.

He has been principal cellist of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and co-­‐principal of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He was a member of Sequoia Quartet, Camerata Trio, Tel Aviv Piano Quartet, and leader of the Israel Cello Ensemble. Emanuel Gruber has performed in many major festivals including Salzburg ( Austria), Bath (England), San Sebastian (Spain), Northwestern (Portland), Eilat (Israel), Musike (France), Musical Spring (St. Petersburg) and Rostropovich Cello Festival (Riga). He was Jury member for the Davidoff International Cello Competition in Latvia and for the Salou Music Competition in Spain. Mr. Gruber has been visiting Professor at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington and has taught at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem.

Currently he teaches cello and chamber music at East Carolina University. During the summer he teaches and performs at Summit Music Festival in New York and Zodiac Music Festival in France.

Sahun Sam Hong, piano

Praised for his “excellent combination of virtuosity and musicality” and “lots of clarity, confidence, and wisdom” (New York Concert Review), pianist Sahun “Sam” Hong brings his colorful style and riveting energy to the solo, chamber, and concerto stage. He won the 2017 Vendom Prize at the Verbier Festival.

On the roster of Young Steinway Artists since 2010, Sam has been featured as a guest soloist with the ORF Wiener, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Camerata New York, Fort Worth, Richardson, Racine, Waco, Galveston, and Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestras.

An avid chamber musician, Sam is part of Trio St. Bernard with violinist Brandon Garbot and cellist Zachary Mowitz. He has participated in festivals such as Four Seasons Winter Workshop, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Chamber Music Encounters at Lincoln Center, and the Taos School of Music. His recent collaborations include performances with Colin Carr, Ara Gregorian, Emanuel Gruber, Hsin-Yun Huang, Michael Kannen, Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, Daniel Phillips, Steven Tenenbom, and the Pacifica Quartet.

At the age of 16, Sam graduated magna cum laude from Texas Christian University (TCU) with a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance, studying with John Owings. Currently, Sam is a student of Leon Fleisher in the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Bella Hristova, violin

Acclaimed for her passionate, powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument, violinist Bella Hristova is a young musician with a growing international career. The Strad has praised, “Every sound she draws is superb,” and The Washington Post noted that she is “a player of impressive power and control.” Ms. Hristova’s 2017-2018 season features her characteristically rich and wide ranging musical life, with performances of concerto standards, and works by American composers Lukas Foss and Samuel Barber, including premieres of David Ludwig's Violin Concerto and solo appearances with the Chautauqua, Austin and Milwaukee symphonies, among others. Bella Hristova adds recitals and chamber music to her busy and varied career, performing with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at festivals such as Chamber Music Northwest and Chamber Music New Zealand.

Ms. Hristova has performed extensively as soloist with orchestra including with Pinchas Zukerman and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center, with the New York String Orchestra under Jaime Laredo at Carnegie Hall, as well as with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pasadena, Charleston, Asheville, Greenwich, Vermont, Kansas City, Delaware, Columbus symphonies and Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Asturias Symphony Orchestra, Centro Nacional de la Música-la Orquesta, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, and Korea’s Cheongju Symphony Orchestra. She has performed recitals at Merkin Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, the Weis Center for the Performing Arts, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Alys Stephens Center for the Performing Arts, Free For All at Town Hall, the Shanghai International Music Festival, and Seoul National University. Her most recent recording, Bella Unaccompanied (A.W. Tonegold Records), features works for solo violin by Corigliano, Kevin Puts, Piazzolla, Milstein and J. S. Bach.

A sought-after chamber musician, Ms. Hristova performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at many music festivals including the Young Concert Artists Festivals in Tokyo and Beijing, the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney, Australia, the Grand Teton Festival, the Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Lake Tahoe Summerfest, Lake Champlain Music Festival, the Brevard Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival. She has appeared on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio.

Bella Hristova is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, First Prize in the 2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, First Prize in the 2007 Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand, and Laureate of the 2006 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She was awarded YCA’s Helen Armstrong Violin Fellowship, the Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists, and the Gordon and Harriet Greenfield Foundation Artist Management Fellowship of YCA.

As a result of winning the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Ms. Hristova made a critically acclaimed concert tour of New Zealand, and a similarly acclaimed CD of solo violin works by the Belgian virtuoso Charles de Bériot (Naxos). Music Web International praised her first recording, “…this disc is an absolute winner… …The musical diversity of these pieces is a delight. None of which would count for much if they were not played with the extraordinary virtuosity and musical maturity of Bella Hristova. … Hristova combines jaw-dropping technical prowess with real style.”

Born in Pleven, Bulgaria to Russian and Bulgarian parents, Ms. Hristova began violin studies at the age of six. At twelve, she participated in master classes with Ruggiero Ricci at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 2003, she entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she worked with Ida Kavafian (YCA Alumna) and studied chamber music with Steven Tenenbom. She received her Artist Diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University in 2010. Ms. Hristova plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin, once owned by the violinist Louis Krasner.

Hsin-Yun Huang, viola

Hsin-Yun Huang is firmly established since 1993 as one of the leading violists of her generation. Virtually simultaneously, in that year, she won the top prizes in the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the highly prestigious Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award, which included a scholarship grant, and concerto and recital appearances in Japan. Ms. Huang was also the youngest-ever gold medalist in the 1988 Lionel Tertis International Competition on the Isle of Man. As a result of these and other successes, she has been telecast in concerto appearances with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in Munich, the Zagreb Soloists in Paris and the Tokyo Philharmonic in Tokyo; other significant appearances include live broadcast performances with the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Russian State Philharmonic and the National Symphony of Taiwan among others. Recent solo highlights included collaboration with London Sinfonia in South America; with Naumberg Orchestra in Central Park; with ICE at Miller Theater and with Children Orchestra Society at Alice Tully Hall. A native of Taiwan, Ms. Huang currently resides in New York, and is an active soloist and chamber musician in the U.S., the Far East and Europe. She has participated in various prominent chamber music festivals, including the Rome Chamber Music Festival, Music@ Menlo, Moritzburg Festival in Dresden; Spoleto Festivals in Italy as well as Charleston SC.; Cartagena Festival in Colombia; Chamber Music Northwest, the Marlboro Music Festival; Prussia Cove, England; St. Nazaire in France, Bridgehampton, the El Paso Chamber Music Festival; the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, Festival de Divonne in France; the Appalachian Festival, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the Salt Bay Chamberfest, the Newport Festival and many others.

She has collaborated with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Jaime Laredo, Joshua Bell, Joseph Suk, Menahem Pressler, the Guarneri, Juilliard, Brentano, Orion, St. Lawrence and the Johannes String Quartets. She has recorded Mozart Quintet with the Brentano String Quartet and presented the Mozart Quintets with them under the auspices of Carnegie Hall in 2007.

Ms. Huang has recently embarked on a series of major commissioning projects for solo viola and chamber ensemble. In July 2006 she premiered a new work from Houston-based Taiwanese composer Shih-Hui Chen, Shu Shon Key (Remembrance) with the Broyhill Chamber Ensemble at An Appalachian Summer Festival in North Carolina. The work was co-commissioned by the festival along with Chinese Performing Arts, and has received performances at Boston’s Jordan Hall and Da Camera of Houston, The Evergreen Symphony Orchestra has commissioned a version of the work for solo viola and orchestra. A new work from Steven Mackey, also for solo viola and chamber ensemble, has received its premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2007. Subsequent performances included presentations by the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago; the International Viola Congress 2008; the La Jolla Summer Festival and at Princeton University. A new disc Viola Viola containing both works will be released by Bridge Record in the fall of 2012.

Ms. Huang was a member of the Borromeo String Quartet from 1994-2000. With the Quartet, she participated in festivals worldwide and in such prominent venues as New York’s Alice Tully Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie and Japan’s Casals Hall. In 1998 the Borromeo String Quartet was awarded the prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award and was chosen by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to be members of “CMS Two” and featured in a “Live from Lincoln Center” telecast. She is currently a founding member of the Variation String Trio with violinist Jennifer Koh and cellist Wilhelmina Smith.

Hsin-Yun Huang came to England at the age of fourteen to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with David Takeno. She continued her studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with Michael Tree, where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree, and at the Juilliard School with Samuel Rhodes, where she earned her Master of Music. She is a dedicated teacher and currently serves on the faculties of the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music.

Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano

Known for her deep musical and emotional commitment to a wide range of repertoire, Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute performs regularly for audiences in the US and Europe. Her ability to communicate the essential substance of a work has led critics to describe her as possessing ‘razor- sharp intelligence and wit' (The Washington Post) and as ‘elegant and engaging' (The Wall Street Journal). In 2006, she was honored as a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship.

In late 2010, Labor Records released Ieva’s Alban Berg Tribute recording comprising Berg’s piano sonata and previously unknown or unrecorded works written in tribute to Berg by Giacinto Scelsi, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Ross Lee Finney, Jacob Gilboa, and Hans Erich Apostel. London’s Sunday Times called it a ‘very interestingly devised debut disc’, and the New York Times lauded it and described Ieva as “an artist of commanding technique, refined temperament and persuasive insight” and as “an authoritative and compelling guide throughout this fascinating disc.”

In the wake of this enthusiastic critical reception, Ieva has performed the Berg sonata in a number of different programs and contexts throughout the US and Europe over the last seasons. Ieva was invited by Festival Pianos aux Jacobins in Toulouse to give her French recital debut in September 2011. Ieva’s performance of works written in the first decade of the 20th century – Debussy, Janacek, Scriabin, Berg, Schoenberg—was described as ‘revelatory’, as demonstrating ‘impressive intensity’, and as ‘illuminating each piece with a deep luminescence’ by Voix du Gars. Next season, Ieva will present this program in her return to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society for her recital debut in January of 2013.

With a reputation for presenting masterful and insightful programs, Ieva regularly gives recitals in major American and European cities—most recently in France, on the Dame Myra Hess series in Chicago, at Caspary Hall in New York City, in Vilnius, Lithuania, and at the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery in Washington DC where she performed a program in conjunction with an exhibit on the 19th century American painter James McNeil Whistler. The Washington Post called her a ‘splendid colorist' and described her performance as ‘magical tone-painting'.

Ieva made her Chicago Symphony debut at the Ravinia Festival in June of 2005 under the baton of James Conlon and her orchestral debut in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil performing Mozart's K. 488 under the baton of Ligia Amadio the following season. She has also performed concerti with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, The Gratz University Orchestra, and the Lithuanian National Symphony.

In June of 2009, Ieva’s piano trio—Trio Cavatina with Harumi Rhodes and Priscilla Lee—won the Naumburg International Chamber Music Competition and made its Carnegie Hall debut in May of 2010 and its San Francisco debut at Herbst Theater later that year. Since its New York City debut at the New School and its Boston debut at Jordan Hall in 2006, the trio has become a prominent force within the chamber music culture in the US and tours extensively throughout the country.

A much sought after chamber musician and collaborator, Ieva’s chamber music endeavors have brought her to major stages around the world such as Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium, London’s Wigmore Hall, Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, and on national tours with Musicians from Marlboro. Ieva has appeared as a guest artist in chamber music performances on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, with New York Philharmonic musicians at Merkin Hall, and with Boston Symphony musicians at Tanglewood.

Ieva regularly appears at international music festivals including: Marlboro, Ravinia, Bard, Caramoor, Chesapeake Chamber Music, Prussia Cove in Cornwall, England, and Festival de la musique de chambre at La Lointaine in France. She has participated in the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Lubeck, Germany, the Katrina Chamber Music Festival, Aland Islands, Finland, the Oulunsalo Chamber Music Festival in Oulunsalo, Finland, the Joaquin Turina Chamber Music Festival in Seville, Spain, and Music in the Vineyards in Napa Valley, CA, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, VT, among others.

For five years, Ieva served on the faculty of the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival as a Collaborative Pianist. Earning degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and from Mannes College of Music, her principal teachers have been Seymour Lipkin and Richard Goode.

Michael Kannen, cello

Cellist Michael Kannen has distinguished himself as a musician and educator of uncommon accomplishment who is comfortable in widely diverse musical situations and venues. He was a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet and for seven years performed with that group on concert stages around the world, on radio and television, and on recordings. During those years, the Brentano Quartet was awarded the first Cleveland Quartet Award, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, a Royal Philharmonic Award and was the first participant in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center II program.

Kannen continues to perform chamber music around the country as a member of the Cooperstown Quartet, the Apollo Trio, on period instruments with the Houston-based group Context and at major music festivals such as Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest, Portland Chamber Music Festival and the International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove, England. Kannen has collaborated with such artists as Jessye Norman, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Sergiu Luca, Donald Weilerstein, Pamela Frank, Leon Fleisher, Mitsuko Uchida, Peter Frankl, Paula Robison, Charles Neidich, Steven Isserlis, and with jazz artists Michael Formanek and Uri Caine. His activities range from performances on period instruments to premieres of the music of our time. He has recorded for the CRI label. Kannen has served on the faculties of Dartmouth College and the Purchase College Conservatory. He is currently the Director of Chamber Music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he holds the Sidney Friedberg Chair in Chamber Music.

Ani Kavafian, violin

Violinist Ani Kavafian enjoys a prolific career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has performed with virtually all of America’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and many others. She is a renowned chamber musician, and has performed with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1979. Her numerous solo recital engagements include performances at New York’s Carnegie and Alice Tully halls, as well as in major venues across the country.

Ani Kavafian continues her association as an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with a number of appearances in NYC and around the United States. She also serves as concertmistress of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, with whom she has recorded the Mozart Violin Concertos. She has participated in the Heifetz International Music Institute, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, Norfok Chamber Music Festival, Great Lakes Festival, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire Festival.

Kavafian appears frequently with her sister, violinist and violist Ida Kavafian. Together they have performed with the symphonies of Detroit, Colorado, Tucson, San Antonio, and Cincinnati, and have recorded the music of Mozart and Sarasate on the Nonesuch label. They celebrated the 25th anniversary of their first performance together at Carnegie Hall in the fall of 2008 with a concert at Lincoln Center, which featured their students and colleagues.

With violist Barbara Westphal and cellist Gustav Rivinius, she is a member of the Trio da Salo, and has teamed with clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist Andre-Michel Schub to form the Kavafian-Schub-Shifrin Trio, with whom she tours frequently as violinist and violist. Along with cellist, Carter Brey, she is co-artistic director of the New Jersey 5 concert chamber music series “Mostly Music.”

Kavafian has premiered and recorded a number of works written for her, including Henri Lazarof’s Divertimento for Violin and String Orchestra with the Seattle Symphony; Tod Machover’s concerto, Forever and Ever, for computerized violin and orchestra, with the Boston Modern; and Michelle Ekizian’s Red Harvest with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. In addition, Kavafian gave the west coast premiere of Aaron Kernis’ Double Concerto for Violin and Guitar, with Sharon Isbin and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Ani Kavafian has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions award, has appeared at the White House on three separate occasions, and has been featured on many network and PBS television music specials. Her recordings can be heard on the Nonesuch, RCA, Columbia, Arabesque, and Delos labels. Kavafian and Kenneth Cooper have recorded Bach’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Fortepiano on Kleos Classics of Helicon Records. A recording of string trios by Mozart and Beethoven by the Trio da Salo has been released, also on Kleos. Mozart Piano and Violin Sonatas with pianist Jorge Federico Osario was recently released by Artek.

Born in Istanbul, Turkey of Armenian heritage, Kavafian began piano lessons at the age of three. At age nine, in the United States, she began the study of the violin with Ara Zerounian and eventually with Mischa Mischakoff. She went on to study violin at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian, eventually receiving a master’s degree with highest honors. Ms. Kavafian is Professor of Violin at Yale University. She plays the 1736 Muir McKenzie Stradivarius violin.

Ida Kavafian, violin

Internationally acclaimed as a violist as well as violinist, the versatile Ida Kavafian is an artist-member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and former violinist of the Beaux Arts Trio. She has been artistic director of Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico for thirty-one years and invites several Curtis students to participate in its Young Artist Program each year. She was a founder of the Bravo! Colorado festival, serving as its artistic director for ten years; and co-founded the chamber ensembles Opus One, Tashi, and Trio Valtorna. She also performs as a soloist and in recital with her sister, Ani.

Ms. Kavafian has premiered numerous works, including concertos by Toru Takemitsu and Michael Daugherty, whose Fire and Blood she recorded with the Detroit Symphony. She has toured and recorded with jazz artists Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis, and fiddler/composer Mark O'Connor.

Born in Istanbul of Armenian parentage, Ms. Kavafian is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Oscar Shumsky. She made her debut under Young Concert Artists with the pianist Peter Serkin, and also received the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant. She resides with her husband, violist Steven Tenenbom, in Philadelphia and Connecticut, where they breed and train prizewinning Hungarian vizsla show dogs.

Ms. Kavafian also teaches at the Juilliard School as well as the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Since 1998 she has served on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she received the 2013 Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Alan Kay, clarinet

Praised by the New York Times for his “spellbinding” performances and “infectious enthusiasm and panache,” Alan R. Kay is Principal Clarinetist and an Artistic Director of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as well as Principal Clarinet of New York’s Riverside Symphony and the Little Orchestra Society. He also appears as Principal with the American Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

Mr. Kay’s honors include the 2015 Classical Recording Foundation Samuel Sanders Chamber Music Award, the C.D. Jackson Award at Tanglewood, a Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award, Juilliard’s 1980 Competition, and the 1989 Young Concert Artists Award with the sextet Hexagon later featured in the prizewinning documentary film, “Debut.” Mr. Kay is a founding member of Hexagon and Windscape Quintet. Summer festivals include Yellow Barn, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society and Holland’s Orlando Festival. His innovative programming for the New York Chamber Ensemble was a regular feature of the Cape May Music Festival for 26 years.

Mr. Kay has recorded with Hexagon, Windscape, the Sylvan Winds, Orpheus and numerous other ensembles. His most recent CD, “Max Reger: Music for Clarinet and Piano”, on Bridge Records, was released recently to critical acclaim and received a feature in the November/December 2016 issue of Fanfare Magazine. His arrangements for wind quintet are available from Trevco Music Publishing and International Opus.

Also a conductor, Mr. Kay studied conducting at The Juilliard School with the late Otto-Werner Mueller and has conducted orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the New York City area. Mr. Kay taught at the Summer Music Academy in Leipzig, Germany in 2004 and currently teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard and Stony Brook University. He has served on the juries of the Orlando Festival Piano Trio and Mixed Ensemble International Competitions in Rolduc, Holland; the International Chamber Music Competition in Trapani, Italy; Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Concert Artist Guild Auditions, and the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

Hye-Jin Kim, violin

Violinist Hye-Jin Kim, winner of the 2009 Concert Artists Guild Competition, has been lauded by The Strad for her “…heart-stopping, unrivalled beauty…well-thought out, yet of the moment.” Ms. Kim crafts extraordinary programs often reflecting her interests in Art and Literature which, paired with her rare sensitivity and intellect, set her apart in today’s music scene. This remarkable artistry brought her to international prominence early in her career when she was awarded First Prize at the Yehudi Menuhin Competition at the age of 19.

Ms. Kim has performed as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach, the New Jersey Symphony, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Pan Asia Symphony (Hong Kong), and the Hannover Chamber Orchestra. She has been presented in recital at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kravis Center Young Artist Series, LeFrak Hall at Queens College’s Copland School of Music, Howland Cultural Center, and the Chamber Music Society of Little Rock.

An active chamber musician, Ms. Kim is a member of the Cooperstown Quartet and her festival appearances include Four Seasons, Marlboro, Ravinia, Music from Angel Fire, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Lake Champlain, and Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Festival. She has toured the US and England as a member of the Musicians from Marlboro and Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music.

Ms. Kim graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and New England Conservatory where she studied with Jaime Laredo, Ida Kavafian, and Miriam Fried. In addition to performing, she is an Assistant Professor of Violin at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

Maria Lambros, viola

Violist Maria Lambros has performed as a chamber musician throughout the world as a member of three of the country's finest string quartets in venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, London's Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, New York's Lincoln Center and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. She was a member of the renowned Ridge String Quartet, which was nominated for the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for their recording of the Dvorak Piano Quintets with pianist Rudolf Firkusny on the RCA label. The recording won Europe's prestigious Diapason d'Or in the same year. She was also a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Meliora String Quartet, which was Quartet-in-Residence at the Spoleto Festivals of the U.S., Italy and Australia, and which recorded Mendelssohn's Octet with the Cleveland Quartet on the Telarc label. She was most recently a member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, and is currently a member of the Cooperstown Quartet.

In addition to being a Four Seasons regular, Maria Lambros appears at a number of major chamber music festivals, including those of Helsinki, Aspen, Vancouver, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, La Jolla, Caramoor, Norfolk, Rockport, Skaneateles, Bard, Chamber Music West and New York's Mostly Mozart Festival. She has performed with the Peabody Trio and the Guarneri, Cleveland, Juilliard, Muir, Brentano, Borromeo, Colorado and Orion Quartets, among others. A native of Missoula, Montana, she was named one of "Montana's Leading Artists and Entertainers of the 2oth Century," a millennial list highlighting the last 100 years of Montanans' exceptional contributions to art and culture. A devoted teacher, Ms. Lambros is currently a member of the chamber music faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of Music and the Yellow Barn Music School.

Robert McDonald, piano

American pianist Robert McDonald has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Latin America and the Far East both as solo recitalist and, for many years, as recital partner to Isaac Stern and other distinguished instrumentalists. He has appeared with major orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Juilliard, American, Takacs, Muir, Brentano, St. Lawrence, Vermeer, Borromeo and Shanghai string quartets, as well as with Musicians from Marlboro and at the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival. In addition, he has given concerts for the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Chicago Chamber Musicians, NHK and BBC television worldwide. His discography includes recordings for Sony Classical, Vox, Bridge, Musical Heritage Society, ASV and CRI.

McDonald is a member of the piano faculties at The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he holds the Penelope P. Watkins Chair in piano studies. In addition to being the artistic director of the Taos School of Music and Chamber Music Festival in New Mexico, he has participated in the Bergen, Besancon, Lucerne, Montreux, Salzburg, Aldeburgh and Schleswig-Holstein festivals in Europe, the Marlboro, Brevard and Caramoor festivals in the United States, as well as the Banff Center in Canada.

McDonald is the winner of the Gold Medal at the Busoni International Competition, and the top prizes at both the William Kapell International Competition and the Washington International Competition. He is also the recipient of the National Federation of Music Clubs Artist Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Deutscher Schallplatten Critic’s Prize.

Robert McDonald graduated magna cum laude from Lawrence University. He then completed his studies at the Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music.

Jesse Mills, violin

Two-time Grammy nominated violinist Jesse Mills enjoys performing music of many genres, from classical to contemporary, as well as composed and improvised music of his own invention.

In 2004, Mills made his concerto debut with the Chicago’s Ravinia Festival Orchestra. He has performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, including concerts at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, the Metropolitan Museum, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Boston's Gardener Museum, and the Marlboro Music Festival. He has also appeared at prestigious venues in Europe, such as the Barbican Centre of London, La Cité de la Musique in Paris, Amsterdam’s Royal Carré Theatre, Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan, and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels.

Mills is highly regarded as a champion of contemporary music, a renowned improvisational artist, as well as a composer. He earned a Grammy nomination for his work on a CD of Arnold Schoenberg's music, released by NAXOS in 2005. He can also be heard on the Koch, Centaur, Tzadik, Max Jazz, and Verve labels for various compositions of Webern, Schoenberg, Zorn, Wuorinen, and others. As a member of the FLUX Quartet from 2001-2003, Mills performed music composed during the last 50 years (including the famous six-hour-long String Quartet No. 2 by Morton Feldman), in addition to frequent world premieres.

Mills is a founding member of the Horszowski Trio, as well as Duo Prism, a violin-piano duo with Rieko Aizawa, which earned first prize at the Zinetti International Competition in Italy in 2006. With Ms. Aizawa, Mills became co-artistic director of the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Colorado in 2010.

As a composer and arranger, Mills has been commissioned by venues including Columbia University’s Miller Theater and the Chamber Music Northwest festival in Portland, OR.

Mills is a graduate of the Juilliard School where he was a student of Dorothy DeLay, Robert Mann, and Itzhak Perlman.

Adam Neiman, piano

American pianist Adam Neiman is hailed as one of the premiere pianists of his generation, praised for possessing a truly rare blend of power, bravura, imagination, sensitivity, and technical precision. With an established international career and an encyclopedic repertoire that spans more than sixty concerti, Neiman has performed as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Belgrade, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Minnesota, Saint Louis, San Francisco, Slovenia, Umbria, and Utah, as well as with the New York Chamber Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C. He has collaborated with many of the world’s celebrated conductors, including Jiri Belohlavek, Giancarlo Guerrero, Theodor Gushlbauer, Carlos Kalmer, Uros Lajovic, Yoël Levi, Andrew Litton, Rossen Milanov, Heichiro Ohyama, Peter Oundjian, Leonard Slatkin, and Emmanuel Villaume.

A highly-acclaimed recitalist, Neiman has performed in most of the major cities and concert halls throughout the United States and Canada. His European solo engagements have brought him to Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, where he made an eight-city tour culminating in his debut at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.

Neiman’s recent season highlights include monumental solo recital tours of North America presenting the complete Rachmaninoff Preludes and Études-tableaux, followed up by a triple disc recording, due for release on Aeolian Classics in 2017. Prior to that, Neiman toured extensively with an equally behemoth project, pairing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, and “Hammerklavier” Sonata, Op. 106; he subsequently recorded a double disc set, due for release on Sono Luminus in 2017. Additionally, audiences may look forward to a long-awaited DVD release of his complete Liszt Transcendental Études, recorded live in Los Angeles. Above and beyond his epic recital projects, Neiman premiered his Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (commissioned and composed in 2012) with the Manchester Chamber Orchestra and conductor Ariel Rudiakov on tour throughout Vermont and New York, and gave a west coast premieres in Telluride. A high-definition video release of the world premiere performance is available on Neiman’s YouTube channel.

Current chamber music recording releases include the following: the complete Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky Piano Trios with Trio Solisti, for Bridge; Ravel and Chausson Piano Trios with Trio Solisti, for Bridge; Bernstein Piano Trio with the Seattle Chamber Music Society, for Onyx; Concerto da Camera by Howard Hanson with the Ying Quartet, for Sono Luminus; Dohnanyi’s Sextet for Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Piano with the 45th Parallel ensemble in Portland, Oregon; and piano quartets of Saint-Saëns and Fauré with Maria Bachmann, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Edward Arron. These releases add to a rapidly expanding chamber discography consisting of the following recordings: Arensky’ s Piano Quintet with the Ying Quartet, for Sono Luminus; Sonatas by Franck, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns with violinist Maria Bachmann, for Bridge; and the world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon’s Piano Trio, for Naxos.

His diverse solo discography includes three releases for VAI: a two-disc set of Mozart’s early keyboard concertos with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, an award-winning two-disc set entitled “Adam Neiman Live in Recital,” proclaimed “Critic’s Choice” for 2007 and 2008 by the American Record Guide, and a DVD entitled “Adam Neiman: Chopin Recital.” He released a critically-acclaimed recording of solo piano works by Anton Arensky for Naxos, and his debut recording on Lyric Records of a live, unedited solo recital at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall has recently been re-issued.

Neiman’s live recording presence has extended to the Internet, via his own YouTube channel featuring high-definition video footage from recent concert tours, found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/adamneiman

Radio and television broadcasts featuring Neiman regularly span international airwaves, and his live performance of the Brahms Rhapsodies, Op. 79, at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival on NPR’s “Performance Today” was nominated for a Grammy Award. Chosen as a featured artist by director and Academy Award nominee Josh Aronson, Adam Neiman appeared in the PBS documentary film "Playing for Real," which aired worldwide and continues to air on the Bravo and Ovation networks. He was also featured in Peter Rosen’s “In the Key of G,” a PBS documentary about the Gilmore Festival.

His affiliation with PBS and the documentary genre has merged with his passion for composition: he wrote the score for “Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate,” a film by director and Emmy Award winner Helen Whitney, released on PBS in 2010. His output as a composer encompasses an array of works for solo piano, chamber music, voice, and symphony orchestra, and he is currently polishing a trove of film music samples for his cinematic portfolio. Some of his chamber works have been premiered at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Poisson Rouge in New York City, and at the Festival Cervantinos in Mexico, and he frequently performs his own solo piano music in recital. In 2012 he witnessed the world premiere of his first String Quartet at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and he is currently in the process of finishing his Second Symphony.

Born in 1978, Neiman has captured the attention of audiences and critics alike since his concerto debut at 11 in Los Angeles’s Royce Hall. Clavier Magazine wrote, "Adam Neiman gave a performance that rivaled those of many artists on the concert stage today...his playing left listeners shaking their heads in disbelief." His formative years saw him at the helm of many competitions, with top prizes at the MTNA’s Junior Baldwin Competition, UCLA’s Samick International Competition, the Joanna Hodges International Competition, the Stravinsky Awards International Competition, the Young Keyboard Artists Association International Competition, the California Concerto Competition, and the California State Bartok Competition. At fourteen, he debuted in Germany at the Ivo Pogorelich Festival, and at fifteen, he won second prize at the Casagrande International Piano Competition in Italy, the youngest medalist in the competition's history. In 1995, Neiman also became the youngest-ever winner of the Gilmore Young Artist Award. The following year, he won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and went on to make his Washington D.C. and New York recital debuts at the Kennedy Center and the 92nd Street Y. The Washington Post remarked, “A collection of Chopin’s Waltzes and Nocturnes danced and stormed, and Prokofieff’s Second Sonata enthralled with a dazzling display of inner voices rather than a mere display of muscle. This was playing of wisdom and light befitting an artist in the autumn of his career.” Young Concert Artists additionally honored Neiman with the Michaels Award and presented him in a critically acclaimed solo recital at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Two-time winner of Juilliard’s Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, Neiman received the Rubinstein Award upon his graduation in 1999, the same year in which he received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Neiman’s principal teachers have included Trula Whelan, Hans Boepple, Herbert Stessin, and Fanny Waterman, and he has participated in master classes with legendary pianists Emanuel Ax, Jacob Lateiner, and György Sandor.

In 2015, Neiman was awarded the full-time position of Assistant Professor of Piano at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. He was a member of the esteemed Artist-Faculty at the CCPA for two years prior, and, in addition to his rigorous performance schedule, he has been teaching private lessons for more than a decade. Neiman has presented acclaimed masterclasses throughout the U.S., Europe, and Korea. He regularly serves on the summer chamber music faculty of the Manchester Music Festival in Vermont, and he has taught at the Great Mountains Music Festival in Korea.

As an adjudicator, he has presided over the Philadelphia Orchestra Concerto Competition, KING FM Young Artists Competition, and Reno’s Youth Music Festival, and in 2016 he will judge the Northwestern University Concerto Competition and the Chicago Amateur Piano Competition.

Peter Stumpf, cello

Peter Stumpf is professor of cello at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Prior to his appointment, he was principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 9 years. Stumpf ’s tenure in Los Angeles followed 12 years as associate principal cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. At the age of 16 he began his professional career, winning a position in the cello section of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and an Artist’s Diploma from the New England Conservatory.

A dedicated chamber music musician, he is a member of the Johannes String Quartet and the Weiss - Kaplan - Stumpf Trio, and has appeared on the chamber music series at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, the Boston Celebrity Series, the Da Camera Society in Los Angeles, Walt Disney Concert Hall and at the concert halls of Cologne, at the Concertgebeow in Amsterdam, and at Casals Hall in Tokyo. He has performed with the chamber music societies of Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia and at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico as well as the Festivals of Marlboro, Santa Fe, Bridgehampton, Ottawa, Great Lakes, Ojai, Spoleto, and Aspen. He has toured with Music from Marlboro, the Casals Hall Ensemble in Japan, and with pianist Mitsuko Uchida in performances of the complete Mozart Piano Trios. He has collaborated with pianists Leif Ove Andsnes, Emmanuel Ax, Jorge Bolet, Yefim Bronfman, Radu Lupu, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Andras Schiff, Jean Yves Thibaudet, Mitsuko Uchida, and with the Emerson and Guarneri String Quartets. The Johannes Quartet has collaborated with the Guarneri Quartet on tour including commissions from composers William Bolcom and Esa Pekka Salonen.

Concerto appearances have been with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic, the Virginia Symphony, the Vermont Symphony, the Connecticut String Orchestra, the Sioux City Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay, at the Aspen Music Festival and most recently at the opening concert of the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles. As a recitalist he has performed at the Universities of Hartford, Syracuse, and Delaware, Vanderbilt University, at Jordan Hall in Boston, and at the Philips and Corcoran Galleries in Washington D.C. He has performed the Six Suites for Solo Cello of J. S. Bach on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society Series and on the Chamber Music in Historic Sites Series in Los Angeles.

His awards include first prize in the Washington International Competition, the Graham-Stahl Competition, the Aspen Concerto Competition and 2nd Prize in the Evian International String Quartet Competition.

As a former member of the Boston Musica Viva he has explored extended techniques including microtonal compositions and numerous premieres. As a teacher he has served on the cello faculty of the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, the New England Conservatory, the University of Southern California and guest artist faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music as well as at the Yellow Barn Music Festival and the Musicorda Summer String Program. He has conducted masterclasses at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, Manhattan and Mannes Schools of Music, Iowa and Pennsylvania State Universities, the New England Conservatory of Music, the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Seoul National University, Temple University, Vanderbilt University, and at the Universities of Delaware, Indiana, and Michigan.

Daniel Phillips, violin/viola

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Vegh and George Neikrug. He is a founding member of the 30-year-old Orion String Quartet, which is in residence at Mannes College of Music and performs regularly at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Available on recording are the complete quartets of Beethoven and Leon Kirchner. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA.

Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists in 1976, he has been an emerging artist who has performed as a soloist with the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies. Last season marked his concerto debut with the Yonkers Symphony. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, and has participated in the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England since its inception by Sandor Vegh. He also serves on the summer faculty of the Heifetz Institute. He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for SONY with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma.

He is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. He lives with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor on Manhattan's upper west side.

Raman Ramakrishnan, cello

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan was a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, winners of the grand prize at the 2001 Banff International String Quartet Competition. During his eleven years with the quartet, he performed coast-to-coast in the United States and Canada, in Japan, Hong Kong, Panama and across Europe. The quartet has been in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University, where Ramakrishnan maintains a teaching studio. In 2011, he formed the Horszowski Trio with violinist Jesse Mills and pianist Rieko Aizawa. This season finds the trio performing across the US and India, as well as recording for Bridge Records.

Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor and Bargemusic, with the Boston Chamber Music Society and Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart and Vail Music Festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt.

Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio and grew up in East Patchogue, New York. His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz and André Emelianoff. He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837.

Zvi Plesser, cello

Israeli Cellist Zvi Plesser has a remarkably varied career, which has combined appearances as cello soloist, chamber musician and distinguished educator. Based in Israel, Mr. Plesser has concretized worldwide and collaborated with some of our time’s leading instrumentalists and conductors. As soloist he has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, and the Sofia Philharmonic under conductors Zubin Mehta, Sir Neville Marriner Asher Fisch, David Stern, Steven Sloan and Sergiu Comissiona. He was a member of the Huberman String Quartet and is a founding member of Concertante. A dedicated chamber musician he collaborates frequently with leading instrumentalists including several collaborations with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra principal players. In recent season he has performed in such venues as: Paris Champs-Elysees, Musee du Louvre and Salle Pleyel, Vienna Konzerthouse, Berlin Philharmonie, London Wigmore Hall and Southbank Centre among others. In 2010 he was invited on a 14 concert tour of Australia with the Jerusalem String Quartet.

He has participated in Music festivals around the world, including the Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival, the Marlboro Festival, the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival - Israel, Ako Festival in Japan, the Kuhmo Festival in Finland, Salon De Provence in France and the Rolandseck Festival in Germany. In 2011 he was appointed music director for the” Voice of Music Festival in the Upper Galilee,” – Israel’s oldest chamber music festival. In the last few years He has collaborated with his colleague and friend Hillel Zori in arranging and performing the 6 Bach Solo Suites for two cellos. Mr. Plesser is a graduate of the Juilliard School where he studied with Zara Nelsova. His principal teachers include Zvi Harel in Israel and David Soyer in the United States. Mr. Plesser has been on the faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance since 1998, and has taught at North Carolina School of the arts and in Hochschule für Musik Würzburg in Germany. He is frequently invited to give masterclasses and workshops in musical centers around the world. Mr. Plesser has been heard on various radio and television programs and has recorded for Helicon, Kleos, Meridian and more. A graduate of the Jerusalem Music Center as part of the program for Outstanding Young Musicians headed by Maestro Isaac Stern, Mr. Plesser won the prestigious Francoise Shapira Competition, the 41st annual Washington International Competition and was the recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarships.

Marcy Rosen, cello

Marcy Rosen has established herself as one of the most important and respected artists of our day. Los Angeles Times music critic Herbert Glass has called her “one of the intimate art’s abiding treasures.” She has performed in recital and with orchestra throughout Canada, England, France, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, and all fifty of the United States. In recent seasons she has given Master Classes and appeared on stage in Beijing and Shanghai, China, the Seoul Arts Center in Korea and in Cartagena, Colombia.

A consummate soloist, Ms. Rosen’s superb musicianship is enhanced by her many chamber music activities. She has collaborated with the world’s finest musicians including Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Andras Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Peter Serkin, Isaac Stern, Robert Mann, Sandor Vegh, Kim Kashkashian, Jessye Norman, Lucy Shelton, Charles Neidich and the Juilliard, Emerson, and Orion Quartets. She is a founding member of the ensemble La Fenice, a group comprised of Oboe, Piano and String Trio, as well as a founding member of the world renowned Mendelssohn String Quartet. With the Mendelssohn String Quartet she was Artist-in-Residence at the North Carolina School of the Arts and for nine years served as Blodgett-Artist-in Residence at Harvard University. The Quartet which disbanded in January of 2010, toured annually throughout the United States, Canada and Europe for 31 years. She appears regularly at festivals both here and abroad and since 1986 has been Artistic Director of the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival in Maryland. Another important association is with the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Since first attending Marlboro in 1975, she has taken part in 21 of their “Musicians from Marlboro” tours and performed in concerts celebrating the 40th, 50th and 60th Anniversaries of the Festival.

Marcy Rosen was born in Phoenix, Arizona and her teachers have included Gordon Epperson, Orlando Cole, Marcus Adeney, Felix Galimir, Karen Tuttle and Sandor Vegh. She is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. Ms. Rosen is currently Professor of Cello at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College where she is also Artistic Coordinator of the concert series Chamber Music Live, and she serves on the Faculty at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

Thomas Sauer, piano

Pianist Thomas Sauer is highly sought after as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. Some of Sauer’s recent appearances include concerto performances with the Quad-City and Tallahassee Symphonies and the Greenwich Village Orchestra; solo performances at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium), Merkin Concert Hall, Rockefeller University, and St. John’s College, Oxford; appearances on Broadway as the pianist in 33 Variations, a play about the composition of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations; and performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. With his long-time duo partner Colin Carr, Sauer has appeared at the Wigmore Hall (London), Holywell Music Room (Oxford), the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Musikgebouw, Bargemusic (New York City), the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston) and Princeton University, among many other venues. Other appearances include recitals with Midori at the Philharmonie in Berlin and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels; performances with members of the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress; and numerous concerts with the Brentano String Quartet.

Sauer has performed at many of the leading festivals in the United States and abroad, including Marlboro, Caramoor, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Northwest, El Paso Pro Musica and the Chamber Music Festivals of Seattle, Taos, Four Seasons (North Carolina), Portland and Salt Bay (Maine); as well as Lake District Summer Music (England) and Festival des Consonances (France).

Sauer’s varied discography includes recordings of Beethoven and Haydn piano sonatas for MSR Classics; the complete cello and piano works of Mendelssohn with Colin Carr on Cello Classics; a disc of Hindemith sonatas with violist Misha Amory (Musical Heritage Society); music of Britten and Schnittke with cellist Wilhelmina Smith on Arabesque; music of Ross Lee Finney with violinist Miranda Cuckson on Centaur Records; and violin sonatas of Mozart with Aaron Berofsky on Blue Griffin Recordings. In recent seasons, Sauer has premiered works by Philippe Bodin, Robert Cuckson, Sebastian Currier, Keith Fitch, David Loeb, Donald Martino, David Tcimpidis and Richard Wilson.

A member of the music faculty of Vassar College and the piano faculty of the Mannes College, Sauer is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, Mannes College of Music and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where his major teachers included Jorge Bolet, Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter.

Keiko Sekino, piano

Pianist Keiko Sekino enjoys an active career as a solo recitalist and chamber musician in the United States and abroad, in recent seasons having performed at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Steinway Hall, Bennett-Gordon Hall at Ravinia Park, and Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria in Santander, Spain. She has participated in festivals such as Ravinia, Norfolk, Yellow Barn and Four Seasons in the United States and Kuhmo, Encuentro de Música y Academia de Santander, La Gesse and Pontino in Europe.

In 2006, Keiko Sekino was one of four pianists invited to participate in the Carnegie Hall Professional Workshop with Thomas Quasthoff. As a duo with soprano Awet Andemicael, she worked with baritone Thomas Quasthoff and pianist Justus Zeyen on Lieder by Schubert, Wolf, and Strauss in public master classes, which were presented in recital at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. An accomplished chamber musician, Sekino has shared the stage with violinists Ana Chumachenko and MinJung Kang, and members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Daedalus Quartet, Enso Quartet, Peabody Trio and the Los Angeles Piano Quartet.

A 2001 Presser Music Award recipient, Keiko Sekino received an artistic fellowship from the La Gesse Foundation, and in 2005 and 2006, received grants from the Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation to pursue further studies in Italy and France. She has won first prizes in the Yale Friends of Music Recital Competition and the Commonwealth Competition for Young Pianists. Other competition successes include those at the MTNA Yamaha Competition and the East Connecticut Symphony Competition.

From 2004 to 2006, Sekino served as a pianist for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In this capacity, she worked with conductors John Oliver, James Levine and Keith Lockhart on symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire. A compelling performer of contemporary music, she has worked with composers Sofia Gubaidulina, Joan Tower, Mario Davidovsky and Jake Heggie.

Keiko Sekino completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and holds additional degrees from Yale University in economics and music. Among her teachers are Peter Frankl and Robert McDonald. She joined the piano faculty of the East Carolina University School of Music, Greenville, North Carolina, in 2006.

Axel Strauss, violin

The first German artist to ever win the international Naumburg Violin Award in New York, Axel Strauss has been equally acclaimed for his virtuosity and his musical sensitivity. The Salt Lake Tribune praised his well-rounded artistry by saying, "Strauss quickly established that he is a virtuoso to be reckoned with. But amid his technical acumen, there was a genuine musician. His interpretive prowess was delightful."

Mr. Strauss made his American debut at the Library of Congress in Washington DC and his New York debut at Alice Tully Hall in 1998. Since then he has given recitals in major North American cities, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2007 he was the violinist in the world premiere of "Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby" – written for him by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis.

Mr. Strauss has performed as soloist with major orchestras in North America, Europe and Asia and has collaborated with conductors such as Maxim Shostakovitch, Rico Saccani, Joseph Silverstein, and Alasdair Neale. Mr. Strauss has also served as guest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic as well as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

His recordings include the Brahms violin concerto (BPOlive), the violin version of the Sonatas Opus 120 by Brahms (Organum) and the Duo for Violin and Cello by Kodaly (Oehms Classics). For the Naxos label he has recorded a selection from Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words", the 24 Caprices for solo violin by Pierre Rode, the last three violin concertos by Rodolphe Kreutzer and the complete works for violin and piano by George Enescu. Amadeus Press has issued a DVD featuring Axel Strauss in concert at Steinway Hall in New York City.

Mr. Strauss frequently performs at various music festivals in the US. Festival visits abroad have taken him to Germany, India, Korea and Japan. His chamber music partners have included Menahem Pressler, Kim Kashkashian, Joel Krosnick, Robert Mann and Bernhard Greenhouse.

Since his European debut in Hamburg in 1988, Axel Strauss has been heard on concert stages throughout Europe. He has given concerts in Moscow, Vilnius, Berlin, Bremen, Leipzig and Nuremberg. Concert tours have taken him to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Romania. He has also toured South America and performed in Japan with the Philharmonic Violins Berlin.

At the age of seventeen he won the silver medal at the Enescu Competition in Romania and has been recognized with many other awards, including top prizes in the Bach, Wieniawski and Kocian competitions. Mr. Strauss studied at the Music Academies of Lübeck and Rostock with Petru Munteanu. In 1996 he began working with the late Dorothy DeLay at The Juilliard School and became her teaching assistant in 1998. He has also worked with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Felix Galimir, and Ruggiero Ricci, and at the Marlboro Music Festival with Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida and Andras Schiff. Mr. Strauss has been residing in the United States since 1996. He maintains a busy performance schedule and serves as Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal. Before moving to Canada he was Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Steven Tenenbom, viola

Steven Tenenbom has earned an equally stellar reputation in recital, orchestral and chamber music appearances, displaying in all the impeccable style and sumptuous tone which have earned him a reputation as one of America's finest violists.

In great demand as a chamber musician, Mr. Tenenbom has appeared as guest artist with such eminent ensembles as the Guarneri and Emerson String Quartets, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson and Beaux Arts Trios, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Chamber Music at the "Y." He has appeared as soloist with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brandenburg Ensemble in performances at Boston's Symphony Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, and on tour in Japan. Recent seasons have included recital performances in New York and California, and concerto performances in Washington state, Michigan, Arizona and Ohio.

Additional duo recital and orchestral engagements with his wife Ida Kavafian have also played to capacity crowds across the country. Their brilliant performance with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra under Keith Lockhart's baton led to their reengagement by Mr. Lockhart with the Utah Symphony. The Salt Lake Tribune called it "an inspiring performance," saying the duo "worked magic."

Mr. Tenenbom is the violist of the Orion String Quartet, one of the most outstanding and eloquent ensembles performing today. In addition to their many performances both nationally and internationally, they are the Quartet-in-Residence of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Aspen Music Festival, Mannes College of Music and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; and have toured widely with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, premiering this unique collaboration at Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City.

As a member of the prestigious group TASHI, Mr. Tenenbom has also had a long association with the Marlboro Music Festival, including many tours across the United States, Japan and France. Other festival credits include the June Music, La Jolla Mostly Mozart, Chamber Music Northwest, Music from Angel Fire, and Bravo! Colorado. Devoted to the music of our time, he has worked closely with such diverse composers as Leon Kirchner, Lukas Foss, John Corigliano and jazz greats Chick Corea and Wynton Marsalis.

He also co-founded the exciting group, Opus One, along with pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, violinist Ida Kavafian and cellist Peter Wiley. The group is wide ranging in their approach, presenting educational and community outreach activities as part of engagements.

Mr. Tenenbom is on the faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music, where he is the Coordinator of String Chamber Music. He also serves on the faculties of The Juilliard School, The Conservatory of Music at Bard College and the Mannes College of Music. He has recorded on RCA Records with TASHI and the Guarneri String Quartet, and can also be heard on the Sony Classical, Marlboro Recording Society, Delos, ECM and Arabesque labels.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Mr. Tenenbom began his early studies with Max Mandel. He then attended the University of Southern California as a pupil of Milton Thomas. Further studies carried him to the Curtis Institute of Music where he worked with Michael Tree and Karen Tuttle. Married to violinist Ida Kavafian, the Tenenboms live in Connecticut where they breed, raise and show champion Vizsla purebred dogs.

Xiao-Dong Wang, violin and viola

Violinist Xiao-­Dong Wang entered the Shanghai Conservatory of Music at the age of ten. Wang was First Prize winner in the Menuhin International Violin Competition and First Prize winner in the Wieniawski-­‐Lipinski International Violin Competition at the ages of thirteen and fifteen. He was brought to the attention of Dorothy DeLay of The Juilliard School who arranged for him to begin a four-­year scholarship starting in 1986. A guest soloist of considerable experience, Wang has performed with orchestras around the world, including the Royal Philharmonic in London, the London Mozart Players, Adelaide, Perth, Queensland Symphony Orchestras and Sydney Opera Orchestra. His recording credits include the Bartok Concerto No. 2 and Szymanowski Concerto No. 1 for Polygram Records. He has also appeared performing on both violin and viola in chamber music concerts at Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Aspen, Ravinia and in many other festival and musical events worldwide.

Wang is the resident soloist of the Shanghai Symphony for the 2012-­13 Season, he will appear three times as soloist with the orchestra during the season as well as presenting chamber music concerts and master classes. During his residency, Wang will also perform as a soloist with three other major symphony orchestras in China, including The China Philharmonic in Beijing.

Wang is the artistic director and a founding member of the renowned chamber music group Concertante, where he has collaborated with world renowned musicians and made a vast number of chamber music recordings.

In recent seasons, Mr. Yi has appeared as a soloist with the Russian National Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, and the Brevard Festival Orchestra under the batons of Hans Graf, Julian Kuerti, Grant Llewellyn and Mikhail Tartanikov. As an avid chamber musician, he has collaborated with Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, and Roberto Diaz on national tours and was invited to perform at the Kronberg, Ravinia, Trondheim, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Castleton Festivals. He is a founding member of the Madison Piano Trio, a top prizewinner of the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition (Norway). As a recitalist and masterclass instructor, he has completed residencies at the Bowdoin College, University of Arkansas, East Carolina University, Marylhurst University, Michigan State University, Ouchita Baptist University, Stephen F. Austin University, Randolph College, Cleveland Museum of Art, Theatre de Vevey (Switzerland), and Sendai Cultural Center (Japan). His performances have been broadcast by WQXR, WHYY, KUHF, Radio France and Radio Frankfurt. He has recorded for Hänssler label with Violinist Itamar Zorman.

A recipient of many honors and prizes, Mr. Yi's awards include Mieczyslaw Munz Prize, National Federation of Music Clubs Award, and top prizes in the Sendai International Piano Competition (Japan), and the Trio di Trieste International Chamber Music Competition (Italy).

Mr. Yi is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, The Juilliard School and the Peabody Institute where he worked with Leon Fleisher and Robert McDonald. He is on the faculty at East Carolina University.